Roman Baths

Roman baths were part of the day-to-day life in Ancient
Rome. Bath in Somerset, contains one of the best examples of a Roman bath
complex in Europe. There are two good examples at Pompeii.

The baths at Bath

Roman houses had water
supplied via lead pipes. However, these pipes were taxed according to their
size, so many houses had just a basic supply and could not hope to rival a bath
complex. Therefore for personal hygiene, people went to the local baths.
However, the local bath complex was also a gathering point and served a very
useful community and social function. Here people could relax, keep clean and
keep up with the latest news.

Taking a bath was not a simple chore. There was not one
bath to use in a large complex such as the one at Bath. A visitor could use a
cold bath (the frigidarium), a warm bath (the tepidarium)
and a hot bath (the caldarium). A visitor would spend some of his
time in each one before leaving. A large complex would also contain an exercise
area (the palaestra), a swimming pool and a gymnasium. One of the
public baths at Pompeii contains two tepidariums and caldariums along with a
plunge pool and a large exercise area.

The building of a bath complex required excellent engineering
skills. Baths required a way of heating up water. This was done by using a
furnace and the hypocaust system carried the heat around the complex.

Remains of a hypocaust

Water had to be constantly supplied. In Rome this was done
using 640 kilometers of aqueducts - a superb engineering feat. The baths
themselves could be huge. A complex built by the emperor Diocletian was the size
of a football pitch. Those who built them wanted to make a statement - so that
many baths contained mosaics and massive marble columns. The larger baths
contained statues to the gods and professionals were on hand to help take the
strain out of having a bath. Masseurs would massage visitors and then rub
scented olive oil into their skin.

It was very cheap to use a Roman bath. A visitor, after
paying his entrance fee, would strip naked and hand his clothes to an attendant.
He could then do some exercising to work up a sweat before moving into the
tepidarium which would prepare him for the caldarium which was more or less like
a modern sauna. The idea, as with a sauna, was for the sweat to get rid of the
body's dirt. After this a slave would rub olive oil into the visitor's skin and
then scrap it off with a strigil. The more luxurious establishments would have
professional masseurs to do this. After this, the visitor would return to the
tepidarium and then to frigidarium to cool down. Finally, he could use the main
pool for a swim or to generally socialise. Bathing was very important to the Ancient
Romans as it served many functions.

"We
quickly undressed, went into the hot baths and after working up a sweat,
passed on to the cold bath. There we found Trimalchio again. His skin
was glistening all over with perfumed oil. He was being rubbed down, not
with ordinary linen, but with clothes of the purest and softest wool. he
was then wrapped in a blazing scarlet robe, hoisted into a litter, and
trundled off."

Petronius.

However, not everyone was overjoyed by
them:

"I
live over a public bath-house. Just imagine every kind of annoying
noise! The sturdy gentleman does his exercise with lead weights; when he
is working hard(or pretending to) I can hear him grunt; when he breathes
out, I can hear him panting in high pitched tones. Or I might notice
some lazy fellow, content with a cheap rub-down, and hear the blows of
the hand slapping his shoulders. The sound varies, depending on whether
the massager hits with a flat or hollow hand.

To all of this, you can add the arrest
of the occasional pickpocket; there's also the racket made by the man
who loves to hear his own voice in the bath or the chap who dives in
with a lot of noise and splashing."

Seneca in AD 50

As the Romans advanced west in England,
building the Fosse Way as they went, they crossed
the River Avon. Near here they found a hot water spring. It brought over one
million litres of hot water to the surface every day at a temperature of about
48 degrees centigrade. They built a reservoir to control the water flow, baths
and a temple. A town, Bath, quickly grew around this complex. Many Romans viewed
the springs as sacred and threw valuable items into the springs to please the
gods. An altar was also built at Bath so that priests could sacrifice animals to
the gods. The waters at Bath gained a reputation as being able to cure all ills.
As a result, may travelled to Bath from all over the Roman
Empire to take to the waters there.